1. Field of The Invention
Applicant's invention relates to serving implements used in the restaurant, bar and night club market, particularly to serving trays used primarily to serve beverages.
2. Background Information
Particularly in this "high tech" entertainment age, it is a constant struggle for bars and night clubs to capture and maintain the interest of their patrons. With the advent of state-of-the-art home theater, video games, music videos, and other relatively new avenues for entertainment, potential patrons for bars and night clubs must encounter a "dazzling" environment if they are to be lured back for repeat business.
In many market niches, the preferred environment for night clubs is one of a futuristic or high tech feel. Thus, many such establishments invest heavily in lighting and decorations to achieve such a "feel".
An attractive adjunct to the permanent fixtures of a futuristic night club is that of lighted serving trays for use by wait persons who serve mixed drinks. Serving trays with integral lighting were once known, but they were of little practical use. Earlier trays included an array of pin point lights over each one of which a single drink glass is to be placed. The light from each light bulb is supposed to be reflected throughout any drink glass placed over the bulb to give a dramatic visual effect, particularly in a darkened night club atmosphere.
The earlier tray systems worked reasonably well in theory, but in practice there are serious drawbacks. Because the light is emitted from the prior art serving tray at very localized points, positioning of the drinks on the tray is critical to achieve the desired visual effect. Busy wait persons simply do not, in the real world, take time to meticulously position and thereafter maintain drink glasses on specific locations on a drink tray.
What is needed to fully benefit from the concept of lighted serving trays for use in night clubs and bars is a serving tray which: (1) emits light in a generalized fashion whereby any drink glass on the tray surface will "pick up" the light; (2) is fabricated from materials which are light enough to avoid unnecessary fatigue or proclivity for dropping trays on the wait persons' behalf; (3) is durable for withstanding the rigors of night club and bar use; and (4) are constructed in such a manner that they can be purchased by club owners at cost effective prices. In addition, it is believed that the ability to highlight beverage vendors' logos with emissions from the tray's light source would promote cost share or out right donation of trays by vendors to clubs.